One Chance

Elliot is four. He watches his grandfather breathe out cigarette smoke in his creaking armchair. The living room is small enough to be heated by the portable radiator near his grandfather's slippers. When the old man realises his grandson waits for him, he begins.

"This is a ruined world, son. Diseased with hatred and war before you were born." He takes a drag on his cigarette and Elliot breathes in the coming smoke. "This world is dead, but I know there's another. We could go to it if we only knew the way." Elliot's grandfather smiles at his thoughts. "There's another place put aside for us. I'll find the door one day."

The radiator splutters to its death and the old man curses his misfortune.

---

Elliot is ten. His hair is in a ponytail because that's how his brother wears it and his big brother's the best. Nick Ward and his friends from the year above don't think so.

They grab Elliot as soon as he leaves the cubicle in the little boy's room and pushes him face first into a wall, holding him there. Elliot's cheek grates against the wall as he turns to see the back of a young bystander leave.

The familiar click of a lighter is what he hears behind his head. He smells it before the curves of white smoke comes into vision.  To Nick's irritation, Elliot's hair does not light on fire. It only singes. They let him go.

He smells of burned hair for the rest of the day.

At home, he cuts it short.

---

Elliot is seventeen and he is invincible. The weeks melt into one beautiful summer and time now measures in the hours without her. It has been four hours since they were last together. He wonders if he'll ever see her again when she turns the corner wearing smiles and promises.

They walk together (fingers touching) with electric silence between them.

Tonight they are shy.

Under the tree, whose branches shield them from the world, he can't stop touching her (her hands, her arms, her neck). He touches her lips with his and they kiss for the first time in their make-believe forest. Her name is Sarah Wood and they are in love.

Here, where the smell of night's breeze and Sarah intertwine, he decides the world isn't quite ruined while Sarah is in it. He tells her so.

They kiss.

---

Elliot is twenty five when he scatters his grandfather's ashes in the community garden. He does not ask for permission, and no one complains. The ash settles in the soil.

As he watches the wind kick up the dark remains, he tastes the bitterness which grows like a tumour in his thoughts. His grandfather did not die from lung cancer, but from a fractured skull. Elliot wonders why his grandfather's home, which has so little, was broken into instead of another.

His wife takes his hand. Sarah plants a light kiss on his cheek and leads him away.

Elliot's thoughts linger on bloodied table lamps.

---

Elliot is thirty three. He sits at a desk in the basement while his wife yells at him from beyond a locked door. There are numerous journals stacked on the desk, and it is this that they argue about. With great care, he adds to his grandfather's notes and ignores his wife's accusations.

On his desk, sits a picture of his daughter, Eve. She is six and innocent. He tells the photo, "There's a better place put aside for us. I'll find the door one day." He does not believe Sarah when she calls him an absent father.

Sarah pounds at the door in frustration, one last time, and leaves.

The room is quiet.

---

Elliot is forty seven when war erupts.

He sits in the basement with his family close to him. With one arm he holds Sarah and in the other, Eve. They know their embrace will not save them from the weapons that rain from above. The desk blocks the locked door. His grandfather's journals are in the safe.

Eve cries. She tells her parents of her first kiss under a tree.

Through tears, Elliot tells his family what was unsaid during those silent years. He tells them the world is not quite ruined while they are in it.

They wait for the skies to still.

---

Elliot is fifty nine when the war ends.

It is Eve's wedding. The hall is filled with children chasing balloons, dancers and happy drinkers. In the centre, Eve dances with the man she kissed under the tree. They are in love. Together they spin through their own make believe world.

Sarah and Elliot do not dance. They stand in a room filled with dust and stacked chairs. Muted music and laughter bleeds through the walls. Everyone celebrates Eve's love. Everyone celebrates the end of the war. Even those who have open wounds where family members should be.

Here, Sarah kisses Elliot one last time. This is their goodbye.

He goes home to his grandfather's journals, but leaves them unread tonight.

---

Elliot is eighty four. He winces as his arthritis-riddled bones make their way across the damp rock. He wishes for youth again.

In the darkest depths of the cave, where even the light of his torchlight is swallowed, he finds the door. He gropes through the shadows until his hand meets the smooth metal. The door is without rust.

As his fingers take hold of the handle, his heartbeat quickens and plays off beats. Elliot pounds his chest and wills his irregular heart to quieten down. He has come too far to die.

Cries of joy tip out of his quivering lips and Elliot opens the door to the other dimension. Light and dust flood through. He throws up his hands to shield his eyes.

When he can bear to see again, he looks through the door frame and witnesses his new world. A grey land pocked with craters stretches far beyond sight. There are remnants of missiles here – broken – home to nothing – not even cockroaches. The wind kicks up old ash and obscures the red midday sun. This world is dead.

Elliot stares, not understanding.

Eventually, his eyes chance upon the door again. There are words inscribed not on his side of the door, but on the other side – the dead side. It says:

Last Chance Here

Realisation stops his broken heart.